The C.O.O.L. Formula

Wow! This Parenting with Love & Logic is such an awesome class! I have learned things in the past 2 weeks, things that I would have never thought of when it came to parenting. Things that I thought would have a negative affect rather than a positive.

Last night we discussed the C.O.O.L. formula. Dr. Jim Fay created this formula to help parents remember the basic concepts of raising responsible children. This concept goes along with the 4 Steps of Responsiblity we learned last week.

4 Steps to Responsibility:
1. Give the child a task he/she can handle
2. Hope that she blows it
3. Let equal parts of empathy and consequence do the teaching
4. Give the same task again.

The C.O.O.L. Formula:
Control that shared - Parents need to determine who has control now so they can better understand how to give away some control to the kid
Ownership of the problem - Parents & Kids need to determine who owns the problem
Opportunity for thinking/decison making - Kids have a difficult time learning how to think when parents do all the thinking for them.
Let empathy and consequence do the teaching - When parents express their empathy before describing the consequence, the child is much more likely to remember the lesson and feel the parents love and undertsanding as well.

Love & Logic Parents allow kids to make many small choices
- They allow choices that do not affect the parents
- Parents make the decisions that affect the whole family

Examples:

Not: Get your coat on!
Try: Will you be wearing your coat to school or carrying it today?

Not: Drink our milk!
Try: Would you like juice or milk?
Would you like to drink your milk now or in 2 seconds?
Would you like to drink your milk in the red sippy cup or the blue sippy cup?

Not: Do your homework now!
Try: Feel free to join your friends after your homework is done.

These were some of the good key points that stuck out to me! Each week just gets better :)